Must crooks hand themselves in before anything happens?

It is logical and predictable for Labour’s parliamentary group to use Adrian Delia as their alibi when confronted by the revelations made by Daphne Caruana Galizia about them. Joseph Muscat will go for a tu quoque moral equivalence retort with much less ammunition. The unanswered accusations Daphne Caruana Galizia made on Adrian Delia are serious and merit much more attention and a far more committed response than they have had so far.

The allegations on Adrian Delia are above everything else a political liability for the Nationalist Party, for the parliamentary opposition and for the deep need our democracy has of holding the government to account and presenting a viable alternative to it.

Once again Adrian Delia did not address any of the allegations in their substance in Parliament today. But it has to be said: he stood and faced it all and in supporting Chris Said’s call for an independent investigation into all allegations made by Daphne Caruana Galizia, including, by implication, the ones she made on him, he denied the government the alibi they tried to get out of him.

If government MPs wanted to cash in Daphne Caruana Galizia’s credibility in her criticism and revelations on Adrian Delia, why would they dismiss the significance of her criticism and revelations on Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Chris Cardona, Brian Tonna and the rest of them?

Because no alibi can cover up the blood dripping off their grubby hands.

One after the other Labour MPs stood to challenge Adrian Delia to ask a Magistrate to investigate him. Is this how law is enforced in our country now? If I rob a bank or earn money from prostitution or kill my wife, do the police wait for me to turn myself in before they can do anything about it?

If the police have grounds to investigate or prosecute Adrian Delia they don’t need his permission to do so. Or anybody else’s for that matter.

Or at least that’s the theory.

But Labour MPs have stood one after the other today in Parliament to confirm what we’ve all known for some time. When politicians break the law, and when the press make revelations about politicians breaking the law, the institutions wait for permission from the alleged perpetrators before acting.

The situation is truly desperate.